Peter Sellars

Peter Sellars, (born Sept. 27, 1957, Pittsburgh, Pa., U.S.), American stage director. He attended Harvard University, where he began developing his innovative and often controversial style of directing. He is best known for staging plays and operas for numerous international theatres in settings far different than those suggested by the text. His controversial production of Ajax (1986) took the form of a post-Vietnam military trial. Among his many striking opera productions, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni was staged in an urban ghetto, his Così fan tutte in a diner, and his Marriage of Figaro in a corporate high-rise. He wrote the librettos for the operas Nixon in China (1987) and Doctor Atomic (2005), both composed by John Adams. He also collaborated with Adams on the opera A Flowering Tree (2006).